Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
Audiobook6 hours
The Stowaway: A Young Man's Extraordinary Adventure to Antarctica
Written by Laurie Gwen Shapiro
Narrated by Jacques Roy
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5/5
()
About this audiobook
The spectacular, true story of a scrappy teenager from New York’s Lower East Side who stowed away on the most remarkable feat of science and daring of the Jazz Age, The Stowaway is “a thrilling adventure that captures not only the making of a man but of a nation” (David Grann, bestselling author of Killers of the Flower Moon).
It was 1928: a time of illicit booze, of Gatsby and Babe Ruth, of freewheeling fun. The Great War was over and American optimism was higher than the stock market. What better moment to launch an expedition to Antarctica, the planet’s final frontier?
Everyone wanted in on the adventure. Rockefellers and Vanderbilts begged to be taken along as mess boys, and newspapers across the globe covered the planning’s every stage. And then, the night before the expedition’s flagship set off, Billy Gawronski—a mischievous, first-generation New York City high schooler, desperate to escape a dreary future in the family upholstery business—jumped into the Hudson River and snuck aboard.
Could he get away with it?
From the soda shops of New York’s Lower East Side to the dance halls of sultry Francophone Tahiti, all the way to Antarctica’s blinding white and deadly freeze, author Laurie Gwen Shapiro “narrates this period piece with gusto” (Los Angeles Times), taking readers on the “novelistic” (The New Yorker) and unforgettable voyage of a plucky young stowaway who became a Roaring Twenties celebrity, a mascot for an up-by-your bootstraps era.
It was 1928: a time of illicit booze, of Gatsby and Babe Ruth, of freewheeling fun. The Great War was over and American optimism was higher than the stock market. What better moment to launch an expedition to Antarctica, the planet’s final frontier?
Everyone wanted in on the adventure. Rockefellers and Vanderbilts begged to be taken along as mess boys, and newspapers across the globe covered the planning’s every stage. And then, the night before the expedition’s flagship set off, Billy Gawronski—a mischievous, first-generation New York City high schooler, desperate to escape a dreary future in the family upholstery business—jumped into the Hudson River and snuck aboard.
Could he get away with it?
From the soda shops of New York’s Lower East Side to the dance halls of sultry Francophone Tahiti, all the way to Antarctica’s blinding white and deadly freeze, author Laurie Gwen Shapiro “narrates this period piece with gusto” (Los Angeles Times), taking readers on the “novelistic” (The New Yorker) and unforgettable voyage of a plucky young stowaway who became a Roaring Twenties celebrity, a mascot for an up-by-your bootstraps era.
Author
Laurie Gwen Shapiro
Laurie Gwen Shapiro is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and journalist. The Stowaway is her first full-length work of nonfiction.
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Reviews for The Stowaway
Rating: 4.4 out of 5 stars
4.5/5
25 ratings3 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Very exciting and excellent storytelling. Laurie is a great writer and the character of Billy is very captivating. Love this non fiction like a great fiction book.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Enticing written narrative fiction. What a great story! What pluck. What bravery. What a story!
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A fabulous historical account of the life of an amazing New Yorker.